


someone has got to hold on to me.

by shipsthatcouldshowyouthestars



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Endgame Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grocery Shopping, Not Canon Compliant, PTSD mentions, tags will be updated as I write, they survived the apotheosis !, title taken from We Are The Tigers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24705814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipsthatcouldshowyouthestars/pseuds/shipsthatcouldshowyouthestars
Summary: Most nights, Emma was plagued by nightmares of that day. Henry, her biology professor, attracting the aliens with his stupid musical show. The blue dripping out of Charlotte’s stomach as she approached them with her also-infected husband. The helicopter crash. The blue goo that had covered the hospital and her knuckles when a half-infected Paul was sedated by Colonel Schaffer. They’d drained the shit from his body and then holed up in the hospital for 3 days before the military flew them out. It had been 3 days of unimaginable emotions.
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 17
Kudos: 48





	1. lucky girls get fresh starts, here we are

If anyone had told Emma Perkins she’d be living in Colorado in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere, she would have laughed and said “Yeah, right.” and moved on with her day.

She didn’t think it would take a musical apocalypse almost taking her and that dorky coffee boy’s lives to get her out here, under the name Kelly Harrows. Paul went by Ben Bridges now. He lived in the cabin next-door and they didn’t talk much.

Most nights, Emma was plagued by nightmares of that day. Henry, her biology professor, attracting the aliens with his stupid musical show. The blue dripping out of Charlotte’s stomach as she approached them with her also-infected husband. The helicopter crash. The blue goo that had covered the hospital and her knuckles when a half-infected Paul was sedated by Colonel Schaffer. They’d drained the shit from his body and then holed up in the hospital for 3 days before the military flew them out. It had been 3 days of unimaginable emotions.

Colorado was a change of scenery. It was a lot more peaceful than Hatchetfield. There was no Beanies to go to, no Nora to give her shit for being pissed at a customer who had the audacity to be a bitch. In some ways, she missed it, but at the same time, the peaceful atmosphere was welcoming.

With the starting funds she’d been given, she began a small garden. Not her pot farm like she desperately wanted, just a small one with herbs to start off. The little garden sat on the shelf in the kitchen that got light from the window. She watered them every day.

Paul stopped by once a week to bring her groceries. They switched off getting them for the other. He went on Thursdays and she went on Mondays. It was an unspoken agreement. 

“Hey,” He said when Emma opened the door for him. “Thursday groceries.”   
“Thanks,” She said, taking the two bags. “How was it?”   
“Loud, crowded,” He replied. It was the same reply as always.    
“I bet,” She looked in the bag. “Thanks for the stuff.”   
“Of course, see you on Monday,” Emma swore she saw a blush on his face when she looked up.

“See you Monday.” She watched him leave before closing the door and walking into the kitchen, putting the bags on the table before beginning to put the groceries away. Her leg was sore and she looked at the bottle of pain medication that sat next to the mint plant she’d gotten. She had another two hours to go until her next dosage, and she wasn't about to ruin the schedule. Emma Perkins could be careless, but she wasn’t careless enough to fuck up her drug schedule.

Dinner that night was half of a frozen pizza and a can of lukewarm Coca-Cola. Nothing different than what she had back in Hatchetfield most nights. Beanies pay did not give her elegant meals. She chased down her pain medication with some of the Coke and one last slice of pizza before settling down to watch the “so shitty it’s good” reality TV playing on TLC. 

The knock at her door startled her when she got up to get another drink. It wasn’t like anyone to knock on her door. The only people who did were Paul and the kind old lady that lived about 10 minutes down the mountain who came when she first moved in and brought her some household items. Emma hadn’t been assed to remember her name. She looked around and grabbed the kitchen knife that was sitting on the counter before opening the door.

It was only Paul Matthews, Ben Bridges, the same person. The same tall guy who’d bought the shitty Beanies coffee every day for the year Emma worked there, in that stupid coffee shop. She never really understood why Paul didn’t just go to Starbucks down the street. 

“Jesus Christ, couldn’t you have called first?” Emma asked, putting the knife down on the counter. “What do you want?” Paul seemed to recoil a bit at the phrase before chuckling nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. Emma swore she caught a blush.

“Joan left me some cookies and told me to share with “that beautiful girl Kelly” next door”, to use her words.” He showed a small Tupperware of what looked to be chocolate chip cookies. “They’re chocolate chip, and I’m not about to eat them on my own.”    
“Fine, then, we’ll share them,” She stepped back to let him in. He stepped in and Emma closed the door behind him gently. He glanced around the kitchen. Emma would agree it was not the cleanest. She did dishes at night before bed so the sink still had dirty dishes in the sink. The recycling had to be taken out, as it was overflowing. Paul raised an eyebrow at the sight but didn’t say anything as Emma led him into the living room.

“You’re watching 90 Day Fiance?” He asked and Emma caught a sense of humor in his voice. “Seriously?”   
“It’s that or the news since I hate everything else on this stupid TV.” She cracked a smile, sinking into the armchair. Paul sat on the opposite one and put the cookies on the coffee table between the chairs. In the first week of moving, Emma moved everything around the best she could to try and busy herself without straining her leg too much. The coffee table had immediately gone between the two armchairs that sat in the living room. Paul took a cookie and took a bite.

“Oh, she makes good cookies.” He said after he swallowed his mouthful. Emma reached across and took one, taking a bite. Joan did make good cookies. The chocolate chips were still melted and warm. He must’ve come over right after she left him with them. He straightened the wire-framed glasses he had on.

“I didn’t know you had those,” She gestured to them. He fixed them again before Emma caught what looked like a blush on his cheeks.

“Yeah, I really didn’t wear them too much, but my eyesight’s kind of shit so Schaffer was on me about wearing them now,” He laughed a bit, “I wish I had better frames, though.”   
“They make you look old,” She replied, resting her head on her knee. It wasn’t that Paul wasn’t even a little bit attractive with them, he looked smart and Emma liked smart guys, it was just the frames made him look more like an elderly man and Emma liked no-glasses Paul a bit more.

“I know. I’ll see what I can do.” He smiled at her. Emma thought his smile was nice. It was similar to the one he’d given her in Henry’s bunker when they talked about their high schools. _ The same, nerdy smile he’d had on his face when Charlotte had come in and- _

Emma cut off her thoughts. That was a road she didn’t need to go down. They were both silent for a minute before Paul looked at the TV.

“I never saw the appeal in this show. It all comes across shitty to me.” He said, watching the couple. Emma snorted.

“It’s all kind of bullshit anyway.” She replied, leaning back in her recliner. “I just use it as background noise. I hate an empty, silent house.” Sometimes, if Emma had silence, she could hear haunting tunes out of nowhere. Piano chords and guitar riffs. It drove her crazy. 

“Same,” Paul said and that was all they said on that topic.

Paul left around 9 with an empty Tupperware and Emma took her medication as she watched him leave. He was still the same nice guy under the new Ben Bridges name. Maybe something good would come out of this new situation. Maybe.

  
  



	2. it's friends that make the love go 'round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> emma's got a new friend.

A new time slot was filled on Emma’s schedule. On Fridays, Paul came over and they hung out for a few hours, usually in the evening. They’d sit in the armchairs and talk about menial things. Shitty TV, the new frames Paul got for his glasses, the news, all small talk that danced around the events of November. They didn’t want to discuss the aliens yet. That was fine by Emma.

The snow was falling lightly outside, just a small flurry that would pass during the night. Emma had the TV playing in the background as she curled up in the armchair, clipboard with embroidery string attached to it. She followed the pattern ingrained in her memory as she tied the strings together, the chair rocking a bit when she pulled too hard and moved.

The summer she turned 16, her parents had forced her to work as a camp counselor so she could “get some money”, which was their talk for “make yourself look impressive and get out of the fucking house”. At the camp, they’d chucked her into the art room of Sycamore High School and hastily taught her how to do friendship bracelets. It took her a bit, but soon she knew many more patterns than just a candy stripe. Her favorites had been the chevrons and the heart pattern. The kids had made her bracelets and when she came back for junior year, she had a total of 5 bracelets on her wrist and four stuffed inside her backpack. She may have hated kids, but the bracelets were decent for 9-year-olds knotting strings together with hands that smelled like chlorine from the shitty, unkempt pool Sycamore had. 

Now, the bracelets were actually a type of stress relief she’d taken up. There was a little craft store in town and, on her Monday grocery trip, she’d stopped by and picked up a pack of 10 bundles of string. Now, she was making bracelets but not wearing them. Two finished ones sat on the kitchen table and now she was working on a yellow and white one. She mindlessly zoned out, letting her fingers tie the strings together.

  
She didn’t even realize Paul had come in until he had come into the room and Emma caught his shape out of the corner of her eye. Unsure of who it was, her heart picked up and her first instinct was to chuck the clipboard at the figure. She did as her instinct told her to and when she looked up after throwing it, she realized it was Paul. He sidestepped the clipboard and it clattered to the ground in the doorway.

“Sorry,” She immediately apologized, hopping up and getting the clipboard. He shuffled a little bit out of her way and Emma heard him stifling laughter. So, he had a sense of humor that wasn’t just echoing her own jokes. Not that that wasn’t slightly attractive to her, she just liked that he had his own sense of humor, even if it was triggered by her own stupidity.

“Oh, it’s okay, Emma,” He said, “It wasn’t like I was trying to scare you. I just found it odd when you, uh, didn’t answer the door.” He sat down in the other armchair and looked at her as she sat back down. “What’re you doing?”   
  
“Making bracelets.” She replied casually. There was a lack of blue in her string, which was completely valid. The color made her sick inside. Although, making a rainbow bracelet or even a pink, blue, and purple one sounded good to her hypothetically, but the color blue dug up memories and thoughts and unwanted guilt from deep inside her that she didn’t need, or even want. 

“You can make those?” he asked, raising an eyebrow over new glasses frames.

“I was a camp counselor for one of the summer camps that ran out of Sycamore. They stuck me in the art room and the kids showed me some of the patterns.” She showed him. “I’ve made a few. They’re fun to make. I missed them in Guatemala.” She shrugged, putting it in her lap.

“Oh, I used to spend a lot of time in the art room. We may not have had a drama program, but we did have an art program.” He replied, scratching the back of his neck. “It was nice in there.”   
  
“Yeah, the teacher left a shit-ton of drawings up and I used to look at them when kids weren’t in there,” She replied. She could remember a lot of the drawings. Her favorites were the portrait sketches that hung on one of the walls. They were all similarly styled, some of the same person, but all of them were phenomenal. “There were these portrait sketches and they were some of my favorites.”

“I did a lot of them,” Paul shrugged, “So maybe you saw mine. I did a lot in the art program. It was something I liked doing, but it wasn’t practical enough to do as a job. So, I got a degree in accounting, interned at CCRP, and I had been there ever since. That’s not what Mr. Ben Bridges did, though. I’ve got an  _ education degree. _ ” He snorted. “From, like, Tufts University. I don’t even know where that is.”   
  
“Massachusetts. Jane went there for psychology. She was a social worker.” Emma replied. “It’s a nice place. Near Boston, in some suburb,” She shrugged as she began to work on the bracelet again. Paul nodded.

“And what’d Kelly do?”

“Biology. Not too far off from my unfinished botany degree.” She replied. “Here in Colorado too, so it doesn’t seem like she’s the well-travelled one.”

“I guess not,” Paul smiled a bit. “I saw one of the bracelets on the table. It was red orange. Nice colors.”

“If you want it, you can take it,” She replied. “I was just making them.” He blushed when she looked up. “What?”   
  
“Nothing,” He shrugged. “I’ll grab it on my way out.”   
  
“Bullshit, grab it. I’ll tie it on.” She said and he got up, going into the kitchen and grabbing the red and orange chevron she’d made. He came over to her and she tied it on, making sure he could slip it off if he wanted to take it off.

“Thank you,” He said softly when she pulled her hands away. He was smiling at her and he looked genuinely happy to have it. All she could do was smile. This guy made her feel like something more, and she didn’t know how he did it. 

  
She couldn’t tell if it was genuine feelings or just the loneliness talking, but she didn’t mind Paul/Ben. Not at all.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave a comment if you enjoyed !
> 
> chapter title edited from a girl scout camp song <3


	3. paint how you see me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> paul decides to go out shopping with emma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> grocery shopping? yes  
> simp boy? yes  
> art KID? yes

Paul’s life felt a little bit out of his control. He felt out-of-body, but Emma somehow made him feel a little more on Earth. The friendship bracelet only left his wrist when he showered. It made him feel more tangible, more like he was living in the present than trapped in his head.

Schaffer had thrust him into Ben Bridges without any warnings. Ben Bridges, according to the files, had been born in Georgia and gone to college for secondary education and art in Massachusetts. He moved to Colorado to get a job but never applied. That was where Paul assumed he had to begin. It was mid-February, so no school was looking for a new art teacher. He was thankful for that art degree now. 

Drawing helped him feel a little more grounded, a little more there when he woke up from nightmares plagued with Alice’s electric-blue eyes boring into him. He stayed up through the early morning, sketching out whatever non-infected face he could pull from his memories. Sometimes, the little old lady Joan came to mind. He sketched out her short grey-white curls, her little purple glasses that balanced on the bridge of her nose, the wrinkles that lined her face to show her ageing. 

Sometimes, it was Emma. She came to mind the most often. She had a very nice face to draw. He liked to draw her laughing, which had always made his heart flutter when they were back in Hatchetfield. Laughing expressions were harder for him, but he tried. He liked to draw Emma’s entire face. He couldn’t pick out an exact thing he liked most about drawing hers. With Joan’s, it was the small details at the end since he was almost done. With Emma, multiple unfinished sketches were stuffed in the desk drawers. 

The sun was just coming up when Paul registered the fact that he had been drawing for quite some time. A finished sketch of one of the little kids he’d seen outside of the plant store sat on his desk. Tight blonde curls, blue eyes, chubby cheeks. That’s all that he remembered. The blue eyes had been unsettling at first when he walked out with a small lavender plant, but the little boy smiled at him and waved. He gave a small wave back, a smile to the mother, and went on his merry way back home. His sketchpad with yet another Emma sat in his lap, his long legs hanging off his chair. His back was protesting from his position. He took his glasses off, rubbing his face.

He got up and shuffled into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. He poured it into one of the mugs he’d gotten in town. It was a plain forest green, easy on the eyes and nothing that could send him into flashbacks and panic. He took a sip. Warm and bitter, just as he liked his coffee.

He squinted at the calendar, reading the date. It was Monday. Emma would bring him groceries today. He ran his fingers over the bracelet on his wrist, feeling the strings. He really liked it, a lot. He was more than happy Emma let him keep it. Maybe they were something like friends now, maybe a little more than acquaintances who’d clung to each other during the end of the world as they knew it. Maybe a little more than just a “crabby” barista and a stupid lovesick puppy of a man who’d found some sort of comfort in sitting with each other in the bunker of her batshit-crazy biology professor.

He sat down at his desk again, studying the sketch he’d begun of Emma. She looked solemn in this one, which was unusual, but he didn’t feel too bad with how it’d come out. It was definitely one of his better drawings. He didn’t think he’d done this good at a sketch since he was in high school, his portraits lining the room. He remembered the conversation he and Emma had had on Friday night, about their experiences in the Sycamore High School art room. Hers were different from his, just a summer job she didn’t have a particular love for, while his memories were in a place of comfort and excellence. 

He hesitated before picking up the landline that rested on top of the desk and dialed Emma’s home phone number that was taped next to it. He doubted she was awake, but the line clicked and her voice came through.

“It’s, like, 6:30. What do you want?” She asked groggily and Paul bit back a laugh.

“Do you want me to go into town with you today? I mean, I kind of want to go, but I know it’s your day to go shopping and...I kind of don’t want to go alone.” He sipped his coffee as he waited for a response.

“I mean, yeah, you can come as long as you drive,” Emma said, laughing a bit. “My head’s fucking killing me. I don’t want to operate a motor vehicle.” Paul laughed too, which made her laugh. “What time do you want to go?”   
  
“Whatever time you’re ready,” He replied.

“Mm, give me a few hours,” She mumbled. “I’ll come over when I’m actually in working order.” The phone call ended and Paul put the landline back in its dock. He was actually looking forward to the trip to the Whole Foods an hour away that had a small garden store next door. 

Emma indeed came over, her jacket zipped for once. Paul had noticed she wasn’t one for zipped jackets. They got into his small silver car and they drove, mostly in silence since Emma was holding her head like it was in immense pain. When they entered the grocery store, Emma hissed at the artificial lights and squinted as they began to peruse the aisles. 

“What’s wrong?” Paul asked as he skimmed the shelves for the coffee he always bought. Drinking a lot of coffee every day usually drained the container quickly.

“Something set off a headache,” Emma mumbled into her hands as she rubbed her eyes. “I took a Tylenol so I’m hoping that kicks in. What are you getting?”

  
  
“Coffee,” He replied as he grabbed the correct container and put it in the cart. “What do you need, Emma?”

“Like, I think something that isn’t processed frozen meals. Fruit sounds like a good idea.” She replied and steered the cart clumsily towards the fruit section. “Everything is so goddamn expensive here. If something was closer, I’d be much happier and a lot more rich.” She grumbled. Paul just chuckled a bit as he got her some apples that she gave a thumbs-up at. 

They continued to go through the store, picking up essentials and some extra snacks. Emma insisted on a bottle of wine, which Paul decided he would pay for. He got Cheez-its, since those had been one of his favorite snacks before everything. Grocery shopping with Emma was fun, even if she was incapicated by a headache. He wondered if everything was fun with Emma. 

Emma’s Tylenol kicked in after they’d checked out and he was debating going into the small garden store. She, however, barely noticed the store and guided their cart back to his car. She began to load the groceries in and he helped. Their hands touched on a bag and he found himself blushing as he put the bag away.

She was the one to drive them home, helping him unload his groceries and pack them away before he went over and helped her with hers. Her array of plants was cute, each of them perched on the windowsill so they all got some sun. Actually, everything Emma had was cute. And she was cute herself. He walked back to his house, his hands fidgeting with the house keys in his pockets. Emma Perkins was cute, which therefore meant Kelly Harrows was cute. Paul would always find Emma cute, just as Ben would find Kelly cute too.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave a comment if you enjoyed !!!
> 
> chapter title from paint me from firebringer :)


End file.
